The Tamil scholar Dandin (circa 7th century AD) lived and worked in Kanchi in Tamil Nadu, during the reign of the Pallava dynasty. Dandin's writings are all in Sanskrit. Moreover, in his work Daśakumāracarita, the action is not confined to Tamil Nadu but to all over India including various regions of North India.

The existence of people like Dandin meant that India had cultural unity for a very long time, and a direct consequence of cultural unity is political unity.